A while back, I shared with y’all my experiments with starburst patterns. Hard work has paid off. I’ve gotten a lot better at it. Check out this one— and visit my new Facebook page, wilcephotos, and fineartamerica to purchase prints and other items incorporating 10 of my very best photos.
Taking a shot with real vivid color and playing with it in Photoshop… OM-D E-M1 Mark II #getolympus, #lisatomphotography, #olympusphotography
Until recently, a huge frustration in shooting the bright moon and its dimmer context was this— I could 1) brighten the whole image in order to make the context visible, washing out the features of the moon, 2) dim the moon and make the context even less visible, or 3) use a brush to change … More Moonset in the Mountains 17March2022
“Puddingstone” is the common name referring to the artificial lake at Frank G. Bonelli Regional Park in San Dimas, southern California. It is an excellent site for birding. I was there, outdoorswithcamera, on February 8 and 9. This post focuses on waterfowl photos, all available as digital downloads. I am still saving up for a … More Puddingstone Reservoir February 2022
Star Trails Over San Francisco Peaks Another photo from my pre-dawn photo-walk yesterday (2/17/22) morning…another shot at night photography (pun intended). What I am attempting is to minimize noise while maximizing light on my subject— the peaks and the stars above them. This involves the following settings— ISO 1000, f/2.8 at .50s, shot on my … More Night Photography
I confess— I’m a super early riser. So this photo was taken at 4:45 today (February 17, 2022). My fingers were cold. My face was cold. The temperature was roughly 15F at that time. All that aside, I wanted to take a walk and I was looking for a particular scenario to photograph— the moon, … More Snowy pre-dawn morning
In early December I posted a series of photos illustrating “parallelism in nature”. The term refers to pattern or “patternment.” Parallelism is the key to poetry as a tradition around the world. Rhyme is parallelism. Meter or rhythm is parallelism. Patterns involving repetition exemplify parallelism. And it is seen in nature as well as poetry. … More More Parallelism in Nature: Geology
Scroll down now if you want to skip the musings of this former academic and just see the photos! Most of my professional life was spent in linguistic anthropology— that subfield of anthropology dealing with the role of language in culture and society. Many of us linguistic anthropologists study poetics. Russian emigré and Harvard professor … More Pattern Repetition: Parallelism in Nature
Once upon a time, in the days of film cameras, photographers struggled against “grainy” shots. “Noise” is the equivalent in the era of digital photography. If you blow up one of your photos you might be surprised to see irregular blotches throughout. Blurriness is a different problem. Blurriness is caused by camera jiggle or movement … More Noise, one of the enemies of clarity in photos—and, a solution!
One of my favorite places in Flagstaff is Frances Short Pond. It is a hotspot for members of the Order Odonata— dragonflies and damselflies like the one below, which is, I believe, a “bluet.” But now the show I promised—a shaky video of two orange dragonflies and their mid-air mating dance. The still photos on … More Dragonflies mating mid-air
It is an inspiring, though common, thing to see flocks of ducks or geese flying overhead in V-formation. A duck flying alone is also beautiful, as is this mallard… http://www.wilcephotos.com/Northern-Arizona/JMW-Birds-Bees-Etc/i-qndbZbn/0/Th/BIF-Duck%3B%20BubblingPonds%3B%20IMG_9073%20C1PSD1-Th.jpg … but a group of birds synchronizing or coordinating their behavior presents us with a different kind of beauty. This group of Canada Geese flying … More What’s With the V-Formation?
Anywhere you see hawks you are likely to see them being chased by smaller birds and not just chasing after them. The following photos (some of which are links to wilcephotos.com) tell two stories. The first story consists of a single photograph of what we might expect to be most common—a bigger, more carnivorous bird … More Hawks: Chasing and Being Chased
Google Doodles— the graphics atop Google’s splash page that change every day—are sometimes worth taking the time to consider. Such was the case with the 9 January 2016 Google Doodle. The Doodle acknowledges the “41st Anniversary of the Discovery of the Mountain of the Butterflies” The mountain in Mexico where the monarchs “overwinter” is the … More Monarch Discovery
If you have never heard of Curve-Billed Thrashers, you probably don’t live in or near a desert. But if you google “default desert bird” you’ll see a lot of text etc. devoted to Thrashers. Unfortunately, the phrase “default desert bird,” with or without proper attribution is a misquote. At least Wikipedia rightly cites Dunne as the … More What Wikipedia calls the “default desert bird”
I’ve spent the last week in southern California— in Claremont (subject of a future posting) and Laguna Beach, a lovely smallish city lapped by the waves of the Pacific Ocean, some-time home to dolphins, with attractive old cottages in the town above, overlooking the ocean. Photos from this trip can be found here: http://www.wilcephotos.com/Beyond-northern-Arizona/ I … More Laguna Beach sojourn
outdoorswithcamera 
